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Robot in disguise: Sherman by MB&F

Meet Sherman. He's quite a cute little robot, but to be frank, Sherman doesn't do very much. He doesn't do very much at all. Sherman doesn't walk, talk, weld cars, or roam Mars. He doesn't try to kill Sarah Connor, help Luke Skywalker, warn Will Robinson, vacuum the floor, star in feature-length films, or enforce the law. In fact, Sherman really only does two things: telling the time and making people smile - and he does these two things extremely well. Conceived and developed by MB&F and engineered and crafted by L’Epée 1839, Sherman is another robot-like result of Maximilian Büsser’s on-going quest to revisit his childhood, during which he hankered for a robot friend. At least Sherman looks a whole lot friendlier than the MB&F M.A.D Gallery’s mechanical creepy crawlies.

Sherman's mechanics are based on a L'Epée 1839 in-line eight-day movement, which ensures that the friendly tank-treaded table clock can display the correct time on his chest for more than a week before requiring rewinding. But Sherman is not simply a clock inside a robot, but an integral and holistic robot-clock. The mainspring barrel bridge extends down to support his tracks, movement spacers act as shoulders for the arms, and his eyes are bolt heads supporting the regulator. The movement plates and bridges of the clock also make up the skeleton and body of the robot. The transparent blown mineral glass dome on Sherman's head reveals his mechanical brain, which is actually the regulator controlling the precision of the robot's time. It’s mesmerising to watch the little guy "think".

Sherman's arms can be manipulated into nearly any configuration, and his hands can be used to hold items like a pen or his winding key. And while Sherman doesn't walk, his rubber caterpillar tracks are fully functional and, with a little help from a friend, he can roll over the rugged terrain of a typical office desk.

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, man’s best friend was his robot,” says Büsser. “As a ten-year-old fan of Star Wars, I knew that Luke Skywalker could never have prevailed had it not been for droids like R2-D2 – a loyal, resourceful, and brave robot who was always saving his friends. As an only child, I imagined having my own robot companion and Sherman (like Melchior before him) makes that childhood fantasy a reality.”